Boggus Gaaga
What It's Called:
John Joe, Jim Joe, Ambrose, Aloysius, Eamon Ned, Con, Jacko, Micko, Donno, Sonny (even if fifty years old), etc.

Where It's Found:
Usually found hob-nobbing with various GAA officials and often a priest at football and hurling matches on a Sunday. Leaps off the sideline when a player is injured, and waddles across the pitch with a sponge in one hand while it's other hand stops it's jacket from flapping around. Has not been sighted at Croke Park on All-Ireland final day recently, since it is out with a man at the County Board who gave it a ticket behind a pillar in the Hogan Stand back in '85

What It Wears:
Green blazers with the GAA cross on the breast pocket and with (sometimes) a pioneer pin or 'fainne' jostling for attention on the lapel. Wears a tightly-knotted tie which always manages to be totally askew, while its nylon shirt invariably becomes dislodged while it's trampling across the football field, revealing a string vest and an acre of pasty white skin which hasn't seen sunlight in donkeys years. When it stands in as an umpire it wears what resembles an artificial inseminator's white coat. On trips to Dublin it wears its best "Sundah suit" (circa 1950) the trousers of which are hoisted to chin level with the aid of elasticated braces. Always sounds like there's a pound of pennies clattering around in its pocket.

About It's Family:
Has a clutch of daughters in the Civil Service, the Mater Hospital or studying to be teachers. Has strained relationship with sons, however, as none of them have made the county team despite years of "encouragement" from the da.

What It Says:
At a match: "on ya boy, ya"; "Yeowwww!"; "ah jaysus ya couldn't have dat"; "fair play"; he wouldn't run de bar in de pub"; "g'wan, g'wan, g'wan!". At GAA functions it always manages to get in the oul 'cupla focail'. During post mortems of matches it played brilliantly in - from the sidelines - it can be seen perching its belly on the bar-counter and pontificating about unfit players.

What It Works At:
Works in local government, as a national schoolteacher, a publican, or the local garda sergeant. Some members of the species are travelling reps for companies which manufacture roasted peanuts or toilet bowls, and usually have a faded GAA Centenary sticker on the back window of their '83 reg Datsun.

Its Politics:
Boggus Gaaga is basically entrenched in Civil War politics, and has inherited from its ancestors the instinctual habit of always voting Fianna Fail. Holds severe reactionary views on abortion, pluralism, the corrective use of the birch or whatever Father Doody ("a great footballer in his day") tells him to think. Thinks DeValera is a saint, with Jack Lynch not far behind. Has "a lot of time" for Bertie Ahern, one of the few jackeens he has time for. Is full of half-baked tales when filled with drink e.g. that Dan Breen once hid from the Black and Tans in a bread bin in his mother's house.

Leisure Activities
Always picks youngsters from its own parish when it gets to be a minor selector for the county team, and arranges trips to New York for them to play the Mother Macree XV in Brooklyn. Its family has a great devotion to the Holy Rosary, and is also a member of the Knights of Mary at Knock, a member of SPUC and the local Fianna Fail Cumann. A regular visitor to Ballinspittle in its time.